


Miracles are the Whispered "I Love You"s

by sadreel-trash (mind_and_malady)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker, Just Angel Things, M/M, Prayer, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 23:13:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5559371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mind_and_malady/pseuds/sadreel-trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Sam's guardian angel, Gadreel has heard every prayer, and this most recent one makes him think that Sam deserves more than what he has been given.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miracles are the Whispered "I Love You"s

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nonexistenz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonexistenz/gifts).



> For Nonexistenz!! I hope you've had some great holidays, and that this fills your prompts sufficently :D I couldn't really work the third one in, but I think I hit the 1st and 2nd solidly.

_It’s been awhile since I’ve done this_ , Gadreel hears inside his head. The shock of it sets his heart to racing, the words in the book in front of him blurring into nonsense. Sam’s voice echoes in his mind as he keeps talking. He’s right. Gadreel has not heard a prayer from Sam in years.

 _I’m not going to apologize for that. Praying has done jackshit for me, really. Dean’s had more luck with it. But, I’m not really here to complain. I know you probably aren’t listening, or at the very least you don’t care, but I’m telling you right now, you sonuvabitch,_ **_listen to me_ ** _._

Gadreel almost wants to laugh, but he’s too shocked to even breathe. If Sam were anyone else, he would laugh at the audacity of a human to think they had the right to demand things from God. But this is Sam Winchester, and no one is more stubborn, or deserves more, than he does. If anyone could force his Father to listen, it would be him.

_I know your opinion of us probably isn’t very high at this point. I can’t even blame you. Me and Dean, we’ve screwed a lot of shit up. We’ll probably go right on doing it, over and over. That’s fine. We’ll work that out on our own. But you listen to me, you bastard. You listen to me. Let Gadreel be._

Another shockwave rolls through Gadreel, and now he sucks in a breath. His surroundings have blurred to messy lines and streaks of color as he stares unwaveringly at the nonsense markings of the book in his lap. None of it matters. All that matters are Sam’s words, his confusing, shocking words.

 _You’ve done enough to him, do you hear me? You left him in a pit just as bad as the Cage. You let him be tortured. Did you even ask him what happened? Did you bother to listen to him? What kind of fucking Father are you that you could do that to not just one, but two of your children? Two that apparently you favored. So. You leave him be. I swear, if one thing happens to him because of some kind of outside influence or bad luck,_ **_I swear_ ** _I will find you, and you will pay for it._

 _I love him._ Sam sounds like he might be crying, and Gadreel aches for him. _I know that marks him for death anyways but. Just leave him be. He deserves better. Better than what you did to him, better than I can give to him. He still believes in your freaking mission, for fuck’s sake. The least you can do now is stop mucking up his life._

 _That’s all, really,_ Sam’s voice shakes as he lets out a hard breath. _Leave him be. Amen._

The world floods back into focus, too sharp edged and real for a moment before he adjusts. Sam’s prayers are strong, focused. They take up all of his attention, too beautiful and loud for him to ignore. And this time. This time the content of the prayer is something he can address.

It’s a bizarre thing to realize. This is something he can do with his freedom. He can finally answer Sam’s prayers. Although, what does he address about it? The incredible stubbornness and will he put into making the prayer as clear as possible, the demand for God to listen? Or the defense of his own well-being, the threats made on his behalf, made out of love for him?

That’s not quite new information. Gadreel has told Sam that he is loved on many occasions, words that earn shy smiles and flustered breathing and gentle blushes. Recently, Sam has started to murmur the words back to him, sometimes accompanied by warm kisses or hugs. But this - this raging defense of his worth. This is something different, something new. Gadreel almost feels like he should honor it, somehow.

But how? Sam must know he heard that. He knows that Gadreel had been meant to guard him, could hear his prayers, knows that’s part of the reason he chose to take action when Sam laid dying. If he brings it up when their hunt is over, it won’t be too odd, though it may make Sam uncomfortable.

Well. Perhaps he need not be so direct about the matter.

Gadreel decides to wait in the war room for Sam and Dean's return, once he receives the call from Sam telling him they're on the way. He paces a little, and then settles against the side of the table, drumming his fingers against the edge. Occasionally a light will buzz on the table and Gadreel will make a note of it and send it to Castiel. The accumulation of beeps over the last several  months has grown to staggering amounts, each indicating the revival of another angel.

When the door opens, introducing the frigid winter air to the warmth of the bunker, Gadreel stands up straight and looks to the upper platform. Sam offers him a small smile, holding a few grocery bags. Dean is in the middle of a rant about the tomatoes they’d found at the farmer’s market, and Sam quips back at him until Dean scowls and takes the grocery bags, stomping off to the kitchen.

“Hello, Sam,” Gadreel says, once Sam is in front of him.

“Hey.” Sam smiles at him, so fondly, and Gadreel opens his arms to him. Sam steps forward, slides his own arms around Gadreel’s waist. The embrace is warm and long-lasting, and Sam places a kiss to his temple. Gadreel releases a slow, shaky breath, and Sam pulls back just a little, a small furrow in his brow. “You okay?”

Gadreel nods slowly. “Yes, I just…” He takes in a slow breath, let’s it out sharply. “I have something to give you, is all.”

Sam’s eyebrows hike up. “Oh really?”

Gadreel hums acknowledgement. “Really. It is a gift best given in private, though. I thought...I heard your prayer,” he says, forcing his voice to be a little firmer. “I thought it deserved recognition.”

Sam’s face does a strange thing, confusion melting visibly into embarrassment. “Oh, uh. _That._ Look, I was - I was under spirit influence, you don’t have to -”

“Did you mean it?”

“Well - yeah, but -”

“Then it deserves recognition,” he repeats firmly. “May I wait in your room?”

Wordlessly, Sam nods. Gadreel takes a gamble and presses a soft kiss to his mouth, relieved when Sam instantly responds. Then he lets go, and Sam steps back, following the sound of his brother’s clanking in the kitchen.

Gadreel makes his way to Sam’s room without delay. This is no small thing he is about to do. It is likely he will have to explain the magnitude of it, but. Sam is worth it. Sam is worth _everything_ he can offer.

He tries to relax, to bring the intangible onto the appropriate plane of existence. But it’s hard. It’s like coaxing himself into laying himself bare for the executioner’s knife, like finding himself back in his cell, locked in behind the bars. It’s been so long since he’s made this part of himself available for anyone else, and to do this for _him_ \- for Lucifer’s vessel, for the man who has always been the best of humanity, who shines so bright that sometimes he can’t bear to look at him - plants its own special breed of anxiety in him.

Slowly, so slowly, light unfolds behind him. It’s dim, like distant starlight or the dim glow of predawn light, but still present and visible in the dark of Sam’s room. The slowly unfolding wings cast odd shadows and shapes in Sam’s room, shadows crossing shadows, the room slowly filling with the smell of ash and dead fire. He feels the ache of ruined pieces more sharply in this place, but it’s worth it. There are precious few whole feathers left in the fading light of his wings, as most are still damaged and brittle from the Fall, messy and ungroomed from his imprisonment, but he’ll offer them all to Sam.

“Gadreel?” Sam’s voice startles him out of the grooming he was trying to rush through. He stiffens and the wings flicker, shifting in and out of existence as his focus slips, and the angel tries not to cringe. “What are you -” Sam’s soft voice falls away as he sucks in a breath, understanding startling him into silence. Gadreel lifts his eyes, sees Sam watching him with an awe his broken wings do not deserve.

“You can come closer,” he says, because Sam’s uncertainty is palpable. It breaks his heart every time he is presented with evidence of Sam’s discomfort with divinity, not because he does not believe but because he thinks himself unworthy. As though a man as pure as Sam could ever be called unworthy.

Sam steps softly to his side, sitting cross-legged across from Gadreel’s position, on his haunches with his back to the headboard. The wings rest softly, expanded across the mattress and the tips resting softly against the floor. They don’t look entirely tangible - more like starlight and dust bent into something close to wings. Gadreel follows his gaze to the place where his wings meet the floor, almost know what will come out of Sam’s mouth before he says it.

“It seems...wrong, to let them touch the ground,” he says, very softly. So much awe in his voice it puts Gadreel’s heart in his throat.

“It is no indignity, and even if it were, it would be the least of which they have been subjected to,” Gadreel counters smoothly, and very slowly lifts them up, holds them out at their full length. Sam’s eyes drink in the sight as though it were a miracle, and the sense of unworthiness in his stomach must be pushed aside. This moment should not be tainted by such things. He bends one wing toward himself, and plucks the neatest, cleanest secondary he has. It makes him flinch, and Sam makes a distressed noise, half-reaching out before forcing himself back.

Gadreel tries not to be grateful, and plucks a primary from his other wing. The feathers solidify a little more, but their edges are still hazy and uncertain, the transparent dusty color still lit softly from within. He gathers them, smooths them out as best he can, and hands them to Sam. With hesitant hands, he takes them and gingerly examines them. Eventually, he looks back up to Gadreel, his questions scrawled across his face like ink on paper.

“Are they acceptable?” Gadreel asks. He has to know, has to know if they’re good enough, if what he can offer is even remotely comparable to what Sam has given him.

Sam makes a noise, a small laugh of disbelief, and for a moment Gadreel is afraid it is contempt for his pitiful offering of feathers. But then Sam grasps them both in one hand, grinning so wide that dimples are carved into his cheeks, and he laughs. He holds out a hand, and Gadreel takes it, slowly smiling back at him.

“I’ve got no idea what this all means, but, yeah, Gadreel,” he says, and his smile could reignite the sun. “They’re beyond acceptable. I love them.” And then his expression softens, melts into something soft and warm that drives Gadreel to relax himself, shoulders drooping and wings falling once more. “I love you,” he adds, and Gadreel’s smile grows a little larger.

“I love you as well,” he says happily, and tugs at Sam’s hand gently, until the hunter comes forward, knee-to-knee with him. “Would you like to touch them?”

Sam’s mouth drops open, eyes widening, beyond surprised. Then he seems to gather himself, thinking, brow furrowing just enough that Gadreel can’t resist the urge to smooth the line with his thumb. Sam blinks at him, smile quirking up again for just a moment. “Is that okay with you?” he asks, voice warm and accepting and so considerate.

Gadreel can’t help but laugh. “I wouldn’t offer if I did not want you to,” he points out, and Sam smiles.

When his hand settles at the top of Gadreel’s wing, running smoothly along the still-sturdy ridge of bone, there is such awe on his face that Gadreel feels as though he is still in possession of his full power for a moment. For a moment, in Sam’s eyes, he is whole.

And when Sam draws him in, kisses him breathless with hands in his wings, he believes that one day - one day - maybe he actually will be.


End file.
